Monthly Archives: February 2016

During today’s festivities for the birthday of our boss, my cousin (and coworker) announced that she was getting married. Well, that’s not accurate. I ended up telling the boss that she had plans of getting married and that sort of got the wheels in motion.

She (cousin) was on a budget so everyone got on board wanting to see this thing happen for real. Even Big Boss agreed to marry them and sponsor the wedding reception. No problem with the marriage license. Boss knew someone. No problem with the wedding venue; it could be held right there at the office. No problem with the hair and make up; other coworkers volunteered. Flowers, cake, and wedding singer was covered. A date was set. Now, all she needed to do was tell her inchoate husband that all he had to do was “show up”.

It was to be kept secret from her mother who would just be invited on the day of the wedding lest her leech of a brother make a scene to disrupt the festivities. Just a handful of folks would be invited — mostly coworkers, her two BFFs, and several others from her church. It would be small and private, and they’d live happily ever after with a child along the way.

Except that this was supposed to be my story. According to my cards, that is.

And I’ve been thinking, what if I’m channeling other people’s destinies during my readings? My so-called future never happens to me, but it does happen to other people.

My reader calls bullshit to that theory, especially since it is my name and spirit that’s called every time we do readings.

I don’t know.

Oh, btw, I wasn’t spared from the taunting either. My boss just had to say that I was probably envious that it wasn’t me that was getting married. My eyes are still rolling upwards every time I remember that dig.

Last night was the first time Queen M had a concert in Manila. Of course, I wanted to go, but I neither had company nor the money to pay for concert tickets, so I just pretended that it was like any other ordinary day.

Except that my social media newsfeeds were filled with posts about it.

Just imagine, almost $1,500 for a ticket up front. That’s almost one month’s rent, one month’s salary for some folks, and enough food for a month for a family of four.

So trusting in the power of the internet, I checked to see if there were any footages of the concert I could watch. And, lo and behold, someone who attended the Rebel Heart concert in Montreal caught the entire show on video. And that’s what I watched last night. It was everything except, perhaps, the energy of the crowd, and a lighter wallet on my part. And besides, if ever I did go, I would have only afforded something in the upper box, far, far from the Queen herself. So, it turns out, it was even better. The energy of the crowd, I didn’t miss too much because I’m an empath, and through the video, I might as well have been there. And since it’s a big concert tour, tweaks were very minor. Same staging, script, costumes, with just a little change in ad libs to address the audience at the time.

Thank you, Universe. 🙂

There’s one song in the Rebel Heart album that I fell absolutely in love with — Ghost Town. And because my internet angels are super efficient, I can now play it on repeat on YouTube, courtesy of a Chrome app.

In other news, I didn’t get the job I was applying for. It was a VP position in some big company that promised a big paycheck and more than ample benefits. Actually, I wasn’t even interviewed. I had an appointment with the recruiter already, but she wrote last night to tell me that the client was already talking to some candidates they had worked with in the past and that a further search for candidates wasn’t needed any more.

Even if I was ambivalent about accepting the job (had it been offered to me), I was sort of looking forward to it solving my financial problems. I’d be able to afford a new home, possibly a new car, monthly operational expenses, trips and all that — financial security. Yes, I’d be leaving a job I love where I have time to do other things (like sleep, crossfit, write, etc.), but my thinking was that, if I’ll be going through life by myself, I’d have to get these things in order sans my putative husband. I have ten years to make something of my situation until I turn 50, and I plan to make those ten years as productive as possible.

I don’t know why that window closed just as fast as it opened. Maybe it’s part of the Divine Intergalactic Plan or that, somehow, it didn’t jive with what was planned for me. I don’t know. I don’t want to give that lost opportunity any further thought. Sometimes, things just happen. Doesn’t mean there’s a reason behind it. It’s probably some random shit being thrown at me. Life’s like that, sometimes. A “drive-by” by the Universe.

When I was in my 30s, I put my career on hold for love. I thought, “As long as the heart is in the right place, everything will follow.” Well, I didn’t know it then, but I had placed my heart in the worst possible places it could be. And of course, nothing followed, but a string of disappointments and broken dreams. Now, that it doesn’t seem that I’m waiting for anyone in particular who could pick me up from the trenches, I’ve got to watch my own back.

It would be nice to go through life with someone, to be with someone that you’re comfortable in your own skin with — in silence, in speech, in jovial mirth, in the heat of anger, or in the throes of passion. Being an empath (or it’s possible that I may just have an overactive imagination), I already know what it’s like. The whole deal of embracing another both in the banalities of everyday life, in private or in public. And it feels exceedingly good… and happy, like sunshine on a perfect day or whenever I’m just chilling with my dog on a Sunday afternoon, taking our nap with a cool breeze coming from the window. I already feel him, and yet, I also can’t. There’s no hand I can hold. There’s no shoulder I can lean my head on, no arms to embrace, no body I can wrap my legs around. There’s just me watching groups of friends, couples, families, through a window from a distance.

So what is this telling me? That I’m good by my lonesome because I’ve got the sensation and feeling of it down pat despite the abysmal manifestation of my dreams? That it doesn’t matter whether or not they come true because I already know what it feels like to have it?

My BATNA to that unrealized job opportunity was that I had a good stable job that I excelled in, in an office I was comfortable at. That’s why it wasn’t so much of a disappointment when that flew out the window. I was already good. So, by analogy, is “being alone and (almost) self-sufficient” my BATNA in life?

I don’t want to give up on my dreams. There’s a husband and a loving family to be had, a dream house to be built, trips to take, a bank account with unlimited resources to access, and time to write and share the learnings of my soul to others who need it. There are memories to be made so that at the end of my mission on this Earth, I can say I’ve lived a rich, full, and satisfying life, instead of just substantially complying and coming down to join the humans for the sake of.

I’m going to get there eventually. Maybe it’s even sneaking up on me now already. Who knows?

There’s a cat in the box with a radioactive source and a poison that will be released when the source (unpredictably) emits radiation. Is the cat dead? Is the cat still alive?

Until the box is actually opened and you can see the answer for yourself, the cat is both alive and dead.

Such has been the state of my love life the past couple of years. And because I’m such a creature of hope, I don’t want to open the box and find out. I could, if I wanted to. My skills of investigation and deduction are impeccable. But this is where that, oh, so ominous line in the Life of Pi finds relevance — “And so it goes with God.”

Between two alternative versions, one depicting the depravity of the human condition, and the other, depicting a magical bond formed with a tiger — I choose the one which comes with zebra stripes and an orangutan named Orange Juice.

The thing about Schrodinger’s Cat is that it doesn’t take into account the life span of the cat. Let’s say the life span of a cat is around 8-10 years. For those years, as long as the cat is in the box and the box remains unopened, it’s both alive and dead. But what of Year 12? Surely, the cat would most likely be dead by then.

For now, though, I’m perfectly comfortable with Schrodinger’s Cat being both alive and dead.